NEW YORK CITY: More than 37,000 Palestinians were displaced in the occupied West Bank during 2025, a year in which there were also record-high levels of violence committed by Israeli settlers, UN secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday.
The situation on the ground was rapidly eroding the prospects for a two-state solution, he warned.
“We enter 2026 with the clock ticking louder than ever,” Guterres told the opening session of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. 
“Will the year ahead bend towards peace or slip into the abyss of despair?”
Illegal settlement expansions, demolitions, displacements and evictions in the West Bank were accelerating, said Guterres, who described the Israeli actions as destabilizing in nature and unlawful under international law.
“The recently published tender by Israel for 3,401 housing units in the E1 area (of the West Bank), alongside continued demolitions, is profoundly alarming,” he added.
“If carried forward, it would sever the northern and southern West Bank, undermine territorial contiguity, and strike a severe blow to the viability of a two-state solution.”
Turning to the situation in Gaza, Guterres said Palestinians there continued to endure “grave suffering.” More than 500 have been killed since the truce between Israel and Hamas in October, he noted.
“I urge all parties to implement the (ceasefire) agreement in full, exercise maximum restraint, and comply with international law and UN resolutions,” he said.
He called for the rapid and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid at scale, including through the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, which Israel reopened on Monday.
Guterres criticized Israeli authorities for the continued suspension of international non-governmental organizations that provide aid, which he said “defies humanitarian principles, undermines fragile progress, and worsens the suffering of civilians.”
Regarding the future of Gaza, he said any sustainable solution must include governance of the territory and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by a unified and internationally recognized Palestinian government.
“Gaza is and must remain an integral part of a Palestinian state,” Guterres added.
He also reaffirmed his support for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, and condemned recent Israeli legislation and other actions he said impeded the ability of the agency to operate, including moves to demolish its Sheikh Jarrah compound in occupied East Jerusalem.
“Let me be clear: UNRWA premises are United Nations premises,” he said. “They are inviolable and immune from any form of interference.”
Guterres described public threats against UNRWA staff as “utterly abhorrent,” and said Israel was obliged under international law to respect the privileges and immunities of the UN.
He also reiterated that an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory was essential.
“There is only one viable route (to peace): the two-state solution, in line with international law and relevant United Nations resolutions,” he said, as he called on the international community to act “with clarity, unity and determination” on the issue.